USCAN Member Alignment Grants Awardees

No single organization can tackle the climate crisis alone. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and prepare for impacts that communities are beginning to experience today, stronger collaborations are needed, and more grassroots leadership must be supported. USCAN is supporting collaborations and grassroots leadership through its Member Alignment Grants.

The purpose of the Member Alignment Grants is to:

Direct more funding to the grassroots climate movement—especially, but not exclusively, to frontline communities and those in the movement who are traditionally under-funded;

Support efforts to build long-term grassroots power from the ground up, and more unity and solidarity, within USCAN and within the climate movement as a whole; and

Foster collaborative approaches to overcoming shared barriers.

Congratulations to the five collaborative and six grassroots/frontline grants awarded in USCAN’s 2017 Member Alignment Grant process.

Several USCAN members are organizing an alignment convening that brings together community organizations and health professionals as a first step in a longer-term collaborative effort to mobilize more health sector support for the work of grassroots climate justice activists in Miami, Florida. The event will include training as well as alignment. Our goal is to increase cross-sectoral partnership to support climate policies that promote both health and equity. USCAN Collaborators: Physicians for Social Responsibility, Moms Clean Air Force, US Climate and Health Alliance

The grant funds will be used to support the organization’s efforts to advance climate and environmental justice in working-class and communities of color, continue organizing for the just transition of the NRG Huntley Coal plant in Tonawanda, NY and create and grow accessible, generational green jobs in the Western New York Region.

Resources will be used to build on momentum from the 2017 The State of Appalachia Conference to build toward one in 2018, which includes local organizing leading up to the conference, follow up from previous one through a listening campaign, and the creation of a State of Appalachia Report to be created after the 2018 conference. USCAN Collaborators: Franciscan Action Network, NC Interfaith Power and Light, PA Interfaith Power and Light

Grant funds will help to expand Georgia WAND’s work that focuses on building power from the grassroots up by hosting a convening of local leaders, community members, influencers and allies in the region and across the state.

GreenLatinos will seed an environmental justice engagement program that will engage the EJ Working Group to identify one or two environmental justice hot spot campaigns from among our membership that represent pressing and urgent local on-the-ground efforts where GreenLatinos can add value through logistical support, media coordination and messaging amplification, harnessing existing networks and organizational relationships or other mechanisms that will help those campaigns achieve victory.

This collaborative implementation project focuses on the issue of energy equity. The project partners will convene listening sessions with faith leaders for the purpose of increasing awareness and advocacy about energy equity and environmental justice at the grassroots and grasstops levels. This is envisioned as a pilot project that can be scaled up for other USCAN members. USCAN Collaborators: Creation Justice Ministries, NAACP, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action

Kingdom Living Temple will continue organizing frontline communities in South Carolina to mitigate impacts of climate change by educating members of the community. Additionally, it will train ten members of EJ communities: (African American, The Pee Dee Indian Tribe, Caucasian and Latino) to be solar installers with a demonstration project for Florence School District One and the City of Florence.

Anchor frontline community leadership within USCAN and our socially and economically just adaptation and mitigation usergroup. Proposal seeks to spend the next year building connections and bridges within USCAN to incrementally shift this dynamic and to build the grassroots power to anchor this work.

Resources will be used to strengthen the Faith Leaders Network. Sustaining Way, NC Interfaith Power and Light, Kingdom Living Temple and Creation Justice Ministries will benefit from a network of trusted sources for environmental policy information through Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) to better enable them to engage and activate the faith community throughout the Carolinas on issues regarding climate change, the environment and social justice. EDF, NIRS and SACE benefit by having a faith-based network and engaged faith leaders in the Carolinas. USCAN Collaborators: Creation Justice Ministries, Environmental Defense Fund, Kingdom Living Temple, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Sustaining Way

Together Sunrise Movement Education Fund, SustainUS, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and the Power Shift Network will fight back (against President pulling out of the Paris Agreement) by pushing forward in our cities and states around the country to demand local governments uphold the Paris Agreement's intentions domestically. They will lead three regional tours, host community events, embark on 30-day public journey of sacrifice and storytelling and lead youth delegations to COP. USCAN Collaborators: Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Power Shift Network, SustainUS

Funding will support two efforts. The first is a multi-tiered workforce development program and model finalization and the second is strategic planning for proliferation of this model in South Carolina.